UN envoy: Myanmar crisis deepening under military rule

The UN special envoy for Myanmar has warned that the political, human rights and humanitarian crisis in the military-ruled Southeast Asian nation is deepening and taking “a catastrophic toll on the people.”

Noeleen Heyzer told the UN General Assembly’s human rights committee on Tuesday that more than 13.2 million people don’t have enough to eat, 1.3 million are displaced and the military continues operations using disproportionate force including bombings, burnings of homes and buildings, and the killing of civilians.

Heyzer’s briefing was her first at the UN in New York since she visited Myanmar in August and met the head of the military government, Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing.

She said the meeting “was part of broader efforts by the UN to urgently support a return to civilian rule.” She stressed that “there is a new political reality in Myanmar: a people demanding change, no longer willing to accept military rule.”

Heyzer said she made six requests during the meeting with the military’s commander-in-chief, including to end aerial bombing and the burning of civilian infrastructure; deliver humanitarian aid without discriminating; release all children and political prisoners; institute a moratorium on executions; ensure the well-being of and allow meetings with the country’s imprisoned former leader Aung San Suu Kyi; and create conditions for the voluntary and safe return of over 1 million Rohingya refugees who fled to Bangladesh to escape military crackdowns.

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'Little room for de-escalation'

Heyzer told the human rights committee there are some avenues to pursue.

“While there is little room for the de-escalation of violence or for ‘talks about talks’ in the present zero-sum situation, there are some concrete ways to reduce the suffering of the people,” she said.

Heyzer said she has been working “extremely closely” with the ASEAN envoy and the ASEAN chair, but she was critical of its five-point consensus, which doesn’t deal with the Rohingya or how best to return Myanmar to civilian rule.

Another issue that is critical, she said, is that the humanitarian aid under the five-point plan “actually works through the channels of the military, and it doesn’t quite reach the people that are most in need.”

Myanmar for five decades had languished under strict military rule that led to international isolation and sanctions. 

As the generals loosened their grip, culminating in Suu Kyi’s rise to leadership in 2015 elections, the international community responded by lifting most sanctions and pouring investment into the country.

That ended with the military’s February 1, 2021 coup following November 2020 elections in which Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party won overwhelmingly and the military contested as fraudulent.

The takeover was met with massive public opposition, which has since turned into armed resistance that some UN experts, including Heyzer’s predecessor, Christine Schraner Burgener, have characterised as civil war.

Much of the international community, including Myanmar’s fellow members in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, have expressed frustration at the hard line the generals have taken in resisting reform. 

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